Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Time and Love

Does love for someone change with time?
This is the question that's haunting me for quite some time now....

Case 1:
My friend. Happily married for 2 years. Arranged marraige. In-laws are great! Living in a joint family where other women (SILs)are housewives. She gets to be the most cared for female in the house, because she goes out for work. Everything working fine and fantastic. Husband is also great! well settled..caring etc etc.
Commuting time is too much (Thanks to the terrible traffic jams!!). Decided to live in a house separately near to office. Everything fine for an year. But suddenly one fine day felt that Husband is not trustworthy.. tells lots of lies (small ones yaar! not extra marital affair kinds!!). So.... LEFT HIM! After a year now, divorce is also got. Legally separated.

Case 2:
Again my friend. Happily married for 4 years. Love marraige. Everything is going on smooth.. not much of parents support ( or interference), because they married going against them. So, both are just happy with themselves. Wife starts to grow in her career.. starts to earn more than HIM. Trouble starts.. he easily finds a chance to tell her sarcastically that she is "acting" like this because she earns more. She is also equally adamant.. says if that is the case, why can't he improve himself and earn more than her? In between all this hara kiri.. they have a child also. Things kind of cools down after this, the point of attention changes. BUT after a year... things are back where they left.... Now, both are emotionally strained souls. You have to "search" for happiness in their lives. There is still love somewhere..and hence they have not yet thought of divorce... but they just decide to spend more time apart than together.

Is this what life is? I wonder...

My basic reasoning.. when we can love our parents, siblings unconditionally (Though we might not agree with whatever they say!). Why can't we love our partners also like that? We all know that nobody is perfect.. everybody have their own +s and -s. Why can't we accept our partners also just as they are! Why does when it comes to partners "we want them to be how WE want them to be"?
If my father didn't buy me what I wanted.. I would surely cry and hoot and make a big hullah.. but then that would be max for 1 day... after that it's back to normal.
I never expected my parents to give me a "surprise" on my birthday... actually never ever "celebrated" in the house on my birthday for that matter.

But in the same situation, if you replace "father" with "husband" why does the husband become bad? Why do we think that his love for me is fading... that;s why he does all this to me? WHY?

Why does the so called love for your partner fade away after some time? I know there are lots of success stories as well.. where people are happily married for 30 years..:) I am right now talking about the failed ones!

And that too when things we "actually" nice.. if it was a terrible mistake from the beginning then that's a different issue.
Why do people just decide after 3-4 years of happy marraige that their partners are no longer "compatible"??????

8 comments:

claytonia vices said...

I think when it comes to a spouse the expectation are higher and the demands are much higher and moreoever it is very hard to accept the fact that people change as they grow and therefore expectations change too.

I feel that the moment we stop working on the relationship it is on the rocks. Most of us are of the idea that once we are married we don't need to bother about the relationship as much as we did before.

With siblings and parents, I beleive we do not expect them to 'play their role to perfection' everyday I guess which is why those relationships are is easygoing and hence more stable...

I wonder if I am right...

Shoe said...

I can not answer this Q coz I am not married! But seriously, I agree with CV i guess.

Shark said...

@CV: I completely agree with you. But my question was why is it this way?

@GI: :) Don't think about this too much.. you first find somebody and then you can think about these..;-)

@WB: Which truth? And she happens to be a good friend of mine.. there was no reason for her to lie.

And regarding case 2: I definitely do not deny that there is an other side to it.. but that's not my point. My point is where did all that "love" between them go?

It does not matter if I am married or not...:) But then, these are my good friends and I feel sad for them.. at the same time I am kind of get insecure sometimes..."what if this happens with me?"

Shark said...

@WB: You are right! I think the feeling DOES fade away!
Thanks for the appreciation :)

pavan kumar said...

hmmn.. tough one and thought provoking.. take this with a sac of salt:

(*) In marriage, nobody gets ('supposedly') an uper hand.. hence its very democratic.. every opinion counts.. hence ego breeds as everyone expects to be listened and wants to command, whereas parenting is lil like dictatorship (but never the less with high doses of unconditional love).. hence one cries, skips food etc. but gets back to normal life as a child.. in marriage things are different.. its a playground (perception prob)

(*) One has a choice outside marriage.. there can be another marriage after divorce hence plenty of options.. hence the careless attitude and lack of "will" to work on the relationship (which is wrong) whereas it sounds weird if one leaves the parents and prefers to get adopted by a another couple (am I making sense?)

(*) I wouldnt argue that because our parents see us right from our birth.. there is more understanding.. one could put in the same efforts, understanding and patience in a relationship but one doesnt.. why? frustration, peer pressure, ego and other things take over

Mrudula Sreekanth said...

I feel the first and foremost hing is trust. Even if your partner has lied to you about something, you should have that much trust in him/her that that lie was said due to some reason. You should give the other person the benefit of doubt.

The reason why all these happen "after" 3-4 years of marriage and not before is because after marriage we starting taking our partners for granted. That makes all the difference in the world. You assume that you can say and do as you please. You feel that there is no limit but there is probably no such thing as no limit in any relationship.In some relationships the limit might be more and in some less but there IS a limit to the kind of freedom you can taken in any kind of relationship.

Shark said...

@Pavan: *Clap* *Clap*. Perfect! I guess I got my answer when you said this,
*One has a choice outside marriage*

this,

*frustration, peer pressure, ego and other things take over *

and THIS!

*parenting is lil like dictatorship (but never the less with high doses of unconditional love).. *

@Prakash: Well this EGO is a very bad thing, and we all know that so well... But still it does not leave us !! How sad and how true..:(

@Hardu: "Trust".. I am assuming you agree that there should be some limit to this trust thing also! otherwise people take disadvantage of it, right?

@WB: Completely agree with you! when things are not going very well, people end up thinking that the marraige is over instead of rectifying it!

Mysorean said...

Pavan:
Extremely sensible and sane comment! And the truth I guess is the same!

Shark:
Let me try addressing your concerns. I read your case studies and have this to say about them: There can be hundred answers to why this happened or why that happened?! So, lets leave the situational factors and get to the actual cause.

My two cents is that, it's all about acceptance. There is a certain level of acceptance between husband and wife. Whereas between children and parents, its absolute. Now this certain level should slowly rise towards being absolute. And it takes a conscious effort to do that. That's what is called as working on the relationship by so many of our friends here. By working on the relationship what we are trying to achieve is that absolute acceptance.

Take some case studies of your parents or your grandparents. Observe what they do when they have a disagreement. Nothing. They practically do nothing. Crib, yes, once in a while they do that, but then they are in total agreement with the decision and support the other when consequences of the decision are being faced. Now, that's total absolute acceptance of each other.

What is your idea of Love? Think about it. In the name of Love, how many things like possessiveness and other things exist. Love is generally called an emotion. If it is so, then it has to change with time. There is no gainsaying that! But then Love is not this or that, Love is the ultimate. If you define love you have lost the concept!